


heart's ease

by blackkat



Category: Marvel 616, Moon Knight (Comics), Spider-Man (Comicverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Fairy Tale Elements, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-17 22:34:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21850780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: Marc gives his heart away for safekeeping. Years later, he finds a lost heart in the dirt.(Peter Parker loses everything when Otto Octavius takes possession of his body. He loses his life, his reputation, and his heart, all at once. Getting them back isn't an easy thing.)
Relationships: Brunnhilde | Valkyrie/Natasha Romanov (Marvel), Peter Parker/Marc Spector, Teddy Altman/Billy Kaplan
Comments: 45
Kudos: 691
Collections: Cosmic Horror and Urban Fantasy, Only the Most Beautiful





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently the more painkillers I take, the further I descend down the rabbit hole of magical realism.

It takes a very long time for Marc's heart to settle.

When he was a child, it was always close, always easy to spot—a piece of smooth-edged glass, his mother’s old dreidel that she gifted to him, a favorite book, a white-ringed stone Randall pressed into his hands on his birthday, telling him it was magic. That’s common; children’s hearts are open, simple, take a thousand shapes in a thousand moments.

The psychiatric institute changes that, but not the way anyone expects.

Marc is led into the hospital with his heart in a little wooden puzzle-box, multicolored wood and careful strips that hide the lock. He stays outside the door, fiddling with it, while his father speaks with the doctor. The conversation is long, complicated, full of raised voices and despair on his father’s part, but by the second visit, Marc doesn’t need to press his ear up against the door to know what they're talking about.

He’s broken. There's something wrong with him, and the doctor doesn’t really know how to fix it.

“That’s a pretty box,” the nurse who first led him away into a quiet room and asked him questions says. She tucks her skirt around her knees, crouching down in front of where he sits on the floor, and smiles. She’s black, and her hair is thick, soft curls held back by a scarf that’s painted a dozen shades of blue and green. When she smiles, it makes Marc a little less scared of the long, narrow halls and the bare stone. He’d wanted Steven to come, but his father’s started looking sad whenever Marc mentions Steven, so he hadn’t even tried to ask.

“It’s my heart,” Marc says, and offers it up for her to look at.

The woman smiles, but it’s crooked. Instead of taking the box, she reaches out and gently closes Marc's fingers around it again.

“Be careful showing people in here,” she says. “Most of the people are nice, but some of them might try to break your heart if they can.”

Marc falters. He’s never had anyone threaten his heart before, no matter what shape it’s been in. Some of the at school yell, but—

Hearts are off limits. Strangers don’t break other strangers’ hearts.

“It’s all right!” the woman says quickly, raising her hands. “They won't do it because they’re monsters, just—some of them don’t realize. The people here are sick.”

Marc chews on his lip, glancing back at the closed door of the office. “My dad thinks I'm sick,” he says quietly.

The nurse smiles at him, reaching out to pat his shoulder before she rises to her feet again. “Then it’s a good thing you're in a place where we can make you better,” she says. “Hang on to your heart and you’ll be fine.”

Marc nods, and waves in return when she waves to him as she rounds the corner, but there’s a kernel of something dark and cold that’s settled in his chest. He looks down at the puzzle box, at the dark strips of wood inlayed against the golden, and carefully, desperately he curls both hands around it, tips forward to bend his body over it.

Hearts can't be taken. There's always a cost, and if it’s not paid at the taking, it grows and grows until it strikes. Hearts can be _given_ , of course—the price still carries over, but it’s shared. Easier, his mother says, and she would know, because she wears his father’s heart in a ring on a chain around her neck. Marc's father has her heart, an elegant little pin he keeps on his sleeve. That’s how it is when you're married, Marc expects, though he’s never thought much about it.

He doesn’t want someone to take his heart. Thinking about it makes him uncomfortable, makes his skin crawl, and he digs his fingers into the wood of the puzzle-box and feels his heart tremble inside of it, ready to break away, take another form.

It doesn’t, quite. There's nowhere else for it to go here, in this strange, unsettling place, too cold and stark and muffled. Marc makes himself stay perfectly still, like that will help his heart hold on a little longer, and listens to the rise and fall of his father’s desperate voice behind the door.

When he walks out of the institute, his heart isn't in a puzzle-box. The box broke, and everything is so heavy and fuzzy and aching that he can hardly remember when. His father doesn’t ask at first, just bundles him into the back of his station wagon with too many blankets and drives home slowly, carefully.

Like that will make up for anything, Marc thinks, and rests his head against the cold glass of the window. He’s thirteen now. He’s been in the institute for almost three years, and he’s still broken.

“Where’s your box, Marc?” his father finally says, like he’s coming to a realization, when Marc is home and standing in the doorway.

They repainted the kitchen. It doesn’t look anything like Marc remembers, and he hates it.

“Gone,” Marc says, even if it’s hard to get the words out. He can see Randall out of the corner of his eye, a red-brown head peeking over the bannister, but he doesn’t turn. Randall came to visit him sometimes, in the institute. Or maybe that was just Marc seeing things again.

He never used to see things so often, or maybe he just couldn’t tell that he was, then.

“Oh.” His father’s face twists, and he sinks down in one of the unfamiliar chairs around the table, twisting his hands together in his lap. “Marc, I—I'm glad you're home.”

Marc thinks of a hard, narrow bed inside a locked room, unable to remember who he was or why he _should_ be anyone. He doesn’t answer.

“Marc,” his father says, and his voice breaks. That prickles at Marc, makes him want to turn and run. His father is strong, and brave. He escaped the Nazis. He became a rabbi. He shouldn’t sound like that. “Marc, where’s your heart? Should I— do you need somewhere to keep it?”

“It’s safe,” Marc says, and curls his fingers into the hems of his sleeves, so utterly achingly tired that it’s hard to so much as breathe. “I think—I want to sleep.”

His father just looks at him, and the crack that was in his voice is in his eyes, as deep as a sea trench. “All right,” he says, soft, and rises. The touch of his hand on Marc's shoulder should be a comfort, but all Marc wants is to shake it off. Almost three years, and only the nice nurse touched him kindly in that time. He isn't used to it. “Just—tell me, Marc. Tell me if you need something, all right?”

 _I want Steven to be real,_ Marc doesn’t say. _I see things and I don’t want to stop, I just want them to be normal. They_ are _, but I want them to be normal for you too_.

He doesn’t, though. He heads up the stairs to his old room, too different to be home, and closes the door. Slumps down against it, palms pressed flat to his chest, and breathes.

“Marc,” Steven says, and this hand on his shoulder actually feels like his father’s like should have. It’s warm and firm and gentle, and when Steven loops his arms around Marc's neck, Marc closes his eyes. “Marc, it’s okay. I'm not leaving.”

Marc rests his forehead on Steven's collarbone and curls his fingers into the fabric of his shirt. _What’s real_ , he thinks recklessly, because this is the realest thing in his life. “He’ll take care of my heart, won't he?” he asks.

Steven is silent for a very long moment. “I think so,” he finally says. “Who knows with something like him, though.”

For so long Marc couldn’t find solid ground at the institute. For so long he thought he was going to drown, or maybe just go to sleep forever and drift for eternity. But the nice nurse had smiled at him, and in the darkness of his locked room she’d leaned over him. The touch of her hand was desert-hot, and there was something around her neck that glowed white, like a crescent moon.

“Your heart will be safe,” she’d told Marc, in the middle of an endless night. “He’ll keep it safe for you until you find him, all right?”

When Marc asked the doctor about her, the next day, no one remembered her. Another hallucination, the doctor said, but—

Marc's heart is in the hands of someone else, and that’s not a hallucination. He handed it over himself, and he doesn’t regret it.

(The woman from the institute is the seventh knight he meets, spinning out through time with Kang on his heels. She sits on a low brick wall outside a pink house, Accra sprawling out around her in the evening light, and when Marc staggers out of the rift she just looks at him for a long moment. There’s grey in her curls, lines in her face, but she smiles at him.

“How did you know?” Marc asks, but she pulls him down beside her and presses a cup of tea into his hands. There are crescent moons tattooed above the pulse points of her wrists, just as Marc remembers.

“He’s the god of time,” she says. “It’s a straight line for us, but I think for him it all exists at once.”

“Thank you,” Marc says, throat tight, and she smiles, tired and small.

“It’s not every day you get to choose your replacement,” she says, and rises to her feet. “Let me get my mask.”

“The ankh is near the water,” Marc says, an agreement, and she brushes a hand over his hair as she steps back inside the pink house. Before she can vanish, though, Marc asks, without lifting his gaze from the cup, “Did you give him your heart, too?”

In the doorway, the knight pauses. She considers for a long, long moment, and then says, “My heart broke long before he found me. There was never anything I could give.”

She presses her fingertips to her chest, and just for an instant Marc can feel it, the shattered shards of her heart collecting dust in the darkness. They cut her fingers every time she tries to piece them back together, but she’s never really stopped.

“I think he doesn’t care about hearts so much,” Marc says. “Not ours. As long as we _would_ give them, that’s enough.”

“Who’s to say a heart without form doesn’t belong to him anyway?” she asks, smiling a little. “Gods are different.”

She disappears into the house, and Marc stays outside, considering the words. Remembering her in the institute, warm hands in the darkness that drove away the drifting cold, that touched his forehead and cupped his cheek. Her heart is broken, but she was still kind.

When she comes out, pulling a white metal mask down over her face, Marc rises to his feet to meet her. The kpeliye'e is delicate, aged, edged with falcon feathers and well-worn, but Khonshu's crescent moon still shines undimmed on the brow.

“Quickly,” she says, and, “Kang is coming.”

Marc nods, following her out into the city without looking back. He leaves the cup of tea cooling on the wall.)

“If you're going after him, be careful,” Clint tells Peter over the pair of cooling bodies, crescent moons carved bloody and brutal into the victims’ foreheads. “He’s Heartless.”

Peter winces, but doesn’t argue. It makes sense, after all. Moon Knight has always seemed off, a little strange, a little sharp around the edges like his very being is a blade. The fact that they met when Moon Knight was trying to kill him probably doesn’t help Peter's impression of him, either, honestly.

“Of course I'm going after him,” he says, and jabs a finger down at the bodies. “This is _not_ adding to the value of the neighborhood, and if my rent goes up any more, I'm going to have to start living in a cardboard box and changing into my tights in phone booths.”

“Does New York even have phone booths anymore?” Clint asks, squinting. “Last one I saw I holed up in when I got drunk, but that was a while ago.”

“It was a week ago, in Bed Stuy,” Kate says dryly, and crouches down by the bodies, nudging her sunglasses up. They're designer, Peter thinks. He’s offended by that.

Of course, designer costume aside, Kate Bishop’s heart is a bow, sleek and strong. Peter can respect that, at least.

Clint waves that off, unperturbed. “Time is an illusion,” he says. “And so is nutrition. But yeah, Moon Knight’s nuts. He was on my Avengers team, you know, the team I led—”

“Yeah,” Peter says, equally dry. “The West Coast B team. We know. You’ve mentioned it.”

Clint flips him off, but amiably.

“At least our assholes aren’t going to be making a problem of themselves anymore,” Kate says, and rises to her feet. There’s something vicious in her face for just a moment, chilling, but she hides it well. Peter still keeps a careful eye on her as she moves around the bodies, though, ignoring the crime scene tape.

She’d said _rapists deserve what they get_ when she heard the news on the scanner. Peter hasn’t forgotten that.

“Running into someone Heartless will do that,” Clint mutters, glancing up to scan the buildings around them. His eyes narrow, and he jerks his chin up. “Spidey, up on the roof there—you see it?”

Peter twists around, looking up, but can't see anything. Then again, he doesn’t have freaky sniper vision. “One sec,” he offers, and flips around, scaling the wall. About two thirds of the way up, he catches sight of what must have drawn Clint's attention: a flicker of white that moves like cloth, blown by the wind that moans across the tops of the buildings.

“You know,” he says, flipping up over the edge in a way that’s only vaguely for show. He doesn’t trust Moon Knight not to try and take a swing at him. “They say serial killers usually come back to the scene of the crime. You trying to tell me something, Moony?”

Moon Knight doesn’t move from where he’s seated beside the wall. He’s hunched down, cloak wrapped around him, and there’s an unnerving amount of blood on his suit, up his arms and down his chest and smeared across his mask. Peter would recoil, but—

His shoulders are hunched, and he’s sitting in a way that says at least some of the blood is his own. He hasn’t even looked up, and something settles like needles in Peter's chest.

He’s had bad nights, too. Once, MJ would sit with him, lean into him, remind him that there was something else for him besides a dark city and too many terrible people. Not now, of course, because no one in the world knows that Peter is Spider-Man, but—once.

“Hey, Moony,” he says, and carefully takes a seat beside him on the rooftop, ready to leap aside if he needs to. Moon Knight doesn’t so much as twitch, though. His gloves are almost entirely red, and he’s clutching a crescent dart that’s equally bloodstained. “You in there, dude?”

It’s hard to tell behind the bag he’s wearing over his head, but he thinks Moon Knight’s eyes flicker up, over to him. He says nothing, though, just keeps breathing like that alone is an effort, and Peter very deliberately tells himself not to panic.

“Moony, come on,” he wheedles. “Just a word, okay? Say one thing so I know I don’t have to get Hawkeye and Hawkass up here to help haul you off to a hospital. The blood’s going to be hard to explain, and we’ll have to listen to Hawkass talk about all the amazing things he did as leader of the Avengers—”

“West Coast Avengers,” Moon Knight says, and it rasps like he hasn’t spoken in a long time. “The C-rank B team.”

Relief washes over him, and Peter snickers. “Yeah, but try telling him that. I think I've heard about them getting stranded in ancient Egypt forty times already.”

Moon Knight grunts in what’s probably agreement, uncurling slightly. There's a long tear down the side of his suit, the sight of skin through the vivid white almost unnerving, but it doesn’t look deep enough to kill him. Peter's never been sure _what_ can kill Moon Knight, honestly; he’d thought the whole Egyptian moon god thing was Moon Knight being crazy and kind of unhinged, but Jericho Drumm and Clint have both mentioned it offhand, like it’s something they know is real. That probably makes Moon Knight like a very angry real life Egyptian version of Wonder Woman, which is objectively hilarious.

“Have you ever felt the urge to use a magic lasso?” he asks, and Moon Knight gives him a sideways look that somehow feels more judgmental than any of Cap’s ever have. It’s impressive.

“Hey,” Peter says, more quietly. “You need a doctor, Moony?”

“No,” Moon Knight says, and tips his head back against the wall. It’s weird being able to see under his hood; Peter's used to his face just being a spot of darkness and glowing eyes against all the white. Even through the mask, though, he looks tired, and Peter thinks again about what Clint said, that Moon Knight is Heartless.

It felt true before, but right now, looking at him, Peter suddenly isn't sure.

He thinks of his own heart, for a moment. Mary-Jane’s wedding ring, discarded when she forgot about him, forgot about their marriage. Peter keeps it guiltily, a secret, a weakness sitting out in the open on his bedside table. It hurts, but—

Peter can't imagine giving it up entirely. Can't imagine abandoning his own heart to become Heartless, dulled to emotion and unable to form connections again. The idea is horrifying, like a lobotomy willingly undergone, and he has to swallow down the flicker of nausea that rises.

“Do you see it?” Moon Knight asks suddenly, and Peter blinks, looking at him. He follows Moon Knight’s gaze across the open rooftop, to the pipes for the heating unit, and frowns.

“See what?” he asks. “The lovely view of Strivers’ Row? Because I'm a Queens guy myself, no matter how much time I spend in Manhattan—”

“You don’t,” Moon Knight concludes, just a little dry, and closes his eyes. “Those two. They killed a girl.”

Peter can't find words for a long minute. “Yeah,” he finally says. “Three girls. But you shouldn’t have killed them.”

Moon Knight pauses, and Peter can see the twist of his mouth, maybe rueful, maybe disgusted. “I wasn’t trying to,” he says, and it’s not meant to be an excuse. “I just didn’t care enough not to.”

Peter swallows. Moon Knight’s unnerving, unsettling. Too cruel, and Peter hates it, but—

If he’s Heartless, that would explain a lot.

“Daredevil’s been threatening to kick your ass,” he says. “You were leaving bodies all around Hell’s Kitchen.”

Moon Knight’s not listening. His eyes are open again, fixed on the empty part of the roof. “She was a sweet girl,” he says, and something cold prickles down the back of Peter's neck. Not spider sense, but…maybe something similar. “She wanted to be a firefighter. She kept heart in an old teddy bear.”

“Moony,” Peter starts, but doesn’t have any idea how to finish.

Moon Knight glances at him, then sighs softly. He reaches up, pulling off his mask, and it’s not the first time Peter's seen his face, but it’s always a shock how _normal_ he looks. There's a scar over one eye, and his brown hair is messy and flattened from the mask, but—

He’s a normal man behind the creepy mask. He looks tired, and there’s a bruise purpling around one eye, and Peter might give him a second glance on the street but only because he’s got some killer bone structure under the five o’clock scruff he’s sporting.

“I'm a monster,” Moon Knight says, and meets Peter's eyes. “But they were monsters, too. And now there’s two less monsters on the streets.”

It feels like Peter's heart jars sideways just a bit, one painful beat against the worn wood of his nightstand. He swallows, looking away from Moon Knight’s too-determined eyes, and says, “Just—try to leave something for the cops next time, okay? I get a real kick out of webbing them upside down to the wall, and I can't do that if they're dead.”

“Sure you can,” Moon Knight says. “It’s just less fun if they're not swearing at you.” Peter eyes him, a little surprised, and he cracks a faint smile, crooked but warm, and—

Not Heartless, Peter thinks. He’s not. Peter's sure of it.

“Don’t look at me like that. I'm not just crazy and violent,” Moon Knight says, and pulls his mask back on, rising to his feet.

“No, you just keep your sense of humor in reserve,” Peter mutters, but when Moon Knight offers him a hand, he takes it and lets him pull him to his feet. “Like a weapon to use on poor, unsuspecting spiders.”

“It wasn’t that funny,” Moon Knight says.

“It’s funnier than you trying to stick me in a coffin for a bunch of organized crime bosses,” Peter retorts. Maybe he hasn’t entirely gotten over how they met. No one’s ever accused him of not being petty, though.

“I made sure it was the right size,” Moon Knight defends.

“You _fitted me for a coffin_?”

“I was planning to kill you, that doesn’t mean I had to be rude about it.”

“Get out of my neighborhood,” Peter tells him. “Go on. _Get_.”

Moon Knight snorts. “I thought you said you were a Queens guy. This is Manhattan,” he counters, but glances up. Peter looks up, too, just as an eerily silent white craft descends towards the roof and hovers there, obviously unmanned.

Oh, he thinks. That’s why Moon Knight was waiting up here.

“I'm a _your problems are my problems as long as those problems are crimes_ guy,” Peter retorts. “Zip codes don’t play into it. You were listening to that? Moony, I'm touched.”

“It’s hard not to listen when someone is babbling in your ear,” Moon Knight tells him, then leaps up, grabbing the ladder that drops from his plane. He scales it without looking back, and Peter watches him go, rubbing his thumb over the spot where his wedding ring used to sit.

He goes home, because there’s nothing else to do. Three days later he runs into Otto Octavious and a golden octobot, and then for a while everything is just _gone_.

Marlene’s heart was a pretty black rock speckled with gold, found on her first dig with her father. She wore it on a bracelet, and Steven once teased her about wearing her heart on her sleeve. She’d laughed, but—

She’d looked sad, too, and she never asked him where his heart was, or attempted to give him hers. Steven never tried to tell her, either, and Marc wonders, sometimes, if that’s one of the reasons they fell apart.

(If she’d asked, he thinks sometimes. If she’d asked three times and meant it and been willing to bear the cost, he would have given it to her gladly. But the rules meant that she had to say something first, in order to retrieve something lost, something that Marc couldn’t just offer, and she hadn’t.

Maybe that’s why they fell apart. She was waiting for something, and he couldn’t give it, and she couldn’t ask but he couldn’t give without her asking, and—

It just didn’t work, that’s all.)

“He’s been killing,” Wiccan says, and he’s frowning, tugging at the edge of his gloves. Marc crouches beside him, watching the way his eyes stray to Hulkling on the other rooftop. Their conversation is about Spider-Man, but Wiccan never looks away from Hulking for long, no matter what’s happening around them.

Marc grunts instead of answering, because he’s seen the news, too. Spider-Man taking on Marc's own methods sits wrong, especially his reaction in the aftermath.

“He doesn’t care, either,” Marc says quietly. When Wiccan glances at him, Marc shrugs, and says, “He doesn’t react. He defends himself. No matter who he kills, he’s not losing sleep over it.”

Wiccan grimaces. He shifts to worrying the edge of his cloak instead of his gloves, tugging at the crimson cloth. “It’s not right,” he says unhappily. “Spider-Man isn't—that’s not him.”

“No,” Marc agrees, because the Spider-Man who sat next to him on the rooftop, who cared so much about any loss of life, wouldn’t serve as executioner under any circumstances. Spider-Man cares too much. That’s always been his downfall.

With a sweep of leathery green wings, Hulkling leaps off the edge of his building, gliding across to settle on theirs. The wings slide back into his skin as he lands, and he offers Wiccan a sweet smile. “Having fun?” he asks. “Damage Control’s here, so we’re good to leave, if you’re done talking.”

“Just arguing about the best place to get bialys on Flatbush,” Wiccan says lightly, and offers his hands. Hulkling pulls him up and right into a gentle kiss, and Wiccan beams at him.

“Sure, because you always look like someone just killed your dog when you're talking about bialys,” Hulkling says, amused, but doesn’t push.

“Bialys are serious business,” Marc says, and tugs his cloak around himself as he stands. “You have to get the onion to bread ratio just right.”

“More onion never hurt anyone,” Wiccan says staunchly. “Too many poppy seeds ruin it, though.”

“Only if you have no taste buds,” Marc counters, and pauses, looking down at the aftermath of the fight. There’s a body on the ground, covered with black, and for once he’s not the one who put it there. Spider-Man did, and that just sits wrong.

“You're going to look into it?” Wiccan asks quietly, and when Marc glances up again, the kid is watching him, dark eyes worried. “I—he’s on rocky ground with the Avengers right now, but none of them are _pushing_ , and they won't listen to me.”

Hard to remember, sometimes, that Wiccan’s just a teenager. He’s not even a full Avenger yet, no matter how many ways he can break reality just by looking at it sideways. People don’t pay attention to him, even when he’s saying important things. Marc knows the feeling.

“Yeah,” Marc says, and flips his hood up again. “Any idea where he lives?”

Wiccan hesitates, frowning, and then bites his lip. “I—he’s really careful about his identity,” he says.

Marc raises a brow behind his mask, because that’s the understatement of a lifetime. “Just give me a general area,” he says.

Relief crosses Wiccan’s face, and he nods determinedly, pulling away from Hulkling. “All right,” he says, and raises his hands, palms up. His eyes glow an electric white-blue, and Marc can see his lips moving, but can't make out what he’s saying. He doesn’t try to listen in, but glances over at Hulkling as he steps up beside him.

There's a scrap of red fabric tied around his wrist, and Marc knows without having to ask that he’s looking at Wiccan’s heart.

“Thanks,” Hulkling says quietly. “He’s been worried since the thing with Massacre.”

“It’s not right,” Marc says, and doesn’t mean morally. There are certain laws of the universe, and Spider-Man being noble is one of them. No matter how the universe twists, that’s a constant. Spider-Man killing now makes no sense, especially since just a few weeks before his first kill he was telling Marc not to. He’d meant it then, desperate and forceful, even if he’d made a joke out of it. This makes no sense, and Marc can't understand why the Avengers don’t see it.

“Try Johnny Storm, if I can't find anything,” Marc says, because the Human Torch is supposedly one of Spider-Man’s best friends, even if he’s going through some difficulties right now with the rest of the Four gone.

“The Torch is a mess right now,” Wiccan says, the glow of his magic fading. He lets out a breath, then says, “I identified a place where Spider-Man used to spend a lot of time, if that’s enough?”

“Sure,” Marc says, and Wiccan fishes around in his tights for a minute. With a fond roll of his eyes, Hulkling produces a scrap of paper and a pen from his vest, handing them over, and Wiccan gives him a sheepish smile before he scrawls out the rough address. Marc takes it and frowns; that’s a big stretch of streets, and it will take a while to search. But…

Something’s wrong with Spider-Man, and even if he and Wiccan and Hulkling are the only ones who care, Marc owes it to Spider-Man to look.

When he raises his head, Hulkling is watching him, his green face thoughtful. “You're not actually Heartless, are you?” he asks.

“Teddy!” Wiccan hisses, affronted.

“What? I'm just asking!” Hulkling defends, raising his hands. “It feels like he is at first, but—now it’s different.”

“I have a heart,” Marc says, vaguely uncomfortable, and looks down at the paper again. “It’s somewhere safe, that’s all.”

It’s been safe for almost thirty years now, and he’s not about to ask for it back. He works better like this, anyway. His illnesses would make it hard to connect, even if he had his heart. Keeping it distant isn't going to change who he is.

“No one thinks you're Heartless,” Wiccan says stubbornly. It’s a lie, and Marc is well aware of that. He raises a brow at the kid, who flushes, and Hulkling muffles a laugh.

“Thanks, Moon Knight,” he says, smiling. “If you need help, let us know.”

“And try that bakery by the Nostrand Avenue station,” Wiccan says. When Hulkling reaches for him, he takes his hand, twining their fingers together.

Marc nods, not quite able to find the right words. He heads for the street and Jake's cab, parked far enough away that it probably survived the fight with the Wrecking Crew. All he can think about is Spider-Man that last time they met, babbling to him on the rooftop in Harlem. He’d been careful, concerned, had hovered like he was worried and not left until he was sure Marc was fine, regardless of what Marc had just done.

He and Marc might work differently, but Marc owes him for that. For kindness without price, and maybe it’s ironic that that creates the biggest debt, but—

Marc feels the weight of it on his distant heart, a burden readily accepted. Khonshu recognizes it, too, and Marc can feel the press of his god’s attention, not bothering to protest this detour.

The heart he surrendered for safekeeping a lifetime ago beats, beats, beats in the darkness of another dimension, and Marc walks the windy street as the moon rises, trying to ignore the prickles like static though his empty chest.

He doesn’t find Spider-Man, or any trace of him. Comes back, night after night, but never spots him in the sky or near the buildings, even with the copter’s sensors. Marc trusts Wiccan, but even if Spider-Man used to spend time here, Marc is willing to bet he doesn’t anymore.

It’s unsettling, makes him uneasy in a quiet way that slowly unspools across his nerves. Marc lingers by a dumpster in an alley behind an apartment building, not entirely sure where he should go next, and rubs the heel of his hand against his chest.

The easy conclusion, of course, is that Spider-Man’s become Heartless. He’s given up his heart, cut his connection to it, rejected it in favor of no emotion. But—

Marc can't imagine the Spider-Man he knows, who cares so much, ever giving up that way. Hates the mere suggestion of it, and he grits his teeth, forces his thoughts forward towards a real solution. Spider-Man isn't Heartless. He’s anything but.

The moon catches on a spark of gold, deep in the shadows, and Marc pauses.

Behind a half-collapsed stack of boxes, there’s a ring on the ground. It’s a woman’s ring, and it’s someone’s heart. Marc crouches down, scooping it up, and studies it carefully. A wedding band, probably, and he checks it for any sign of its owner, but there’s no mark on it.

Someone lost their heart, Marc thinks, and that’s not easily done. Hearts linger, stay close unless they're surrendered or broken or given away, and they return on their own more often than not if they're misplaced. This heart is steady and strong; Marc can feel the beat of it even through his gloves. Not a broken heart, or a battered one, and he wonders why it’s out here, abandoned in the dirt.

There’s no place to return a lost heart to, no way to find the owner unless they come looking. People have to find their own hearts, and offer something to get them back. That’s how the rules work. At the very least, though, Marc can keep this one safe.

He knows what it’s like to lose one's heart, after all.


	2. Chapter 2

Peter has a tower he doesn’t want, a company he doesn’t know enough about, a fractured relationship he (for once) had little part in breaking, and an empty hole where his heart should be.

The Baxter Building is too big, the apartment where the Fantastic Four’s main rooms used to be familiar and strange all at once. There’s a guilty ache beneath Peter's breastbone that has more to do with stealing Johnny’s home than anything, but—

It’s muted, a prickle beneath his skin instead of an open wound. Because his heart is gone, Peter thinks, and has to breathe very carefully for a moment so that the panic, even muted, doesn’t overwhelm it. He was aware, vaguely, of what happened after he died in Otto’s body, but by the time he had, Otto must have gotten rid of Mary-Jane’s ring, and Peter's heart along with it.

It makes sense, really. What good is a heart to a dead man? Otto didn’t expect him to survive, and he certainly never planned to give Peter his body back.

Standing by one of the wide windows, Peter rubs his knuckles against his chest, eyes closing. He feels _wrong_ , unsettled and out of place, like he wants to run but he’s hemmed in on all sides by vast walls. Somewhere far away, his heart aches, and there’s no way to ease the pain.

He’s not Heartless, but he’s lost his heart. There are a hundred thousand tales to prove just how terrible a fate that is.

Unfortunately, there aren’t any tales to tell him how to go about finding it again when he has no idea where to start looking.

“Spider-Man,” Daredevil says without turning around. “Lost something?”

If Peter stands still to long, he’s going to scratch his own skin off. “I don’t suppose you’ve come across one heart-sized missing item?” he jokes, but the words taste too flat on his tongue. “Or, you know, someone I can punch really hard to make myself feel better?”

Matt doesn’t turn to look at him. “I assume,” he says, “that it wasn’t you dropping bodies?”

Peter breathes, breathes, breathes until the horror and panic subside enough not to crush him between them. “No,” he says, and his voice breaks on the lone word. _Please believe me_ , he wants to say, but can't manage to make his voice work.

Finally, finally, Matt turns, faces him. Cocks his head, like he’s weighing the truth in Peter's voice, and then nods. “All right,” he says, as simple as that. Belief, with nothing else to tarnish it. God, but sometimes Peter loves the fact that Matt’s a walking lie detector.

“Thanks, Red,” Peter says, and slumps down beside him on the rooftop, burying his face in his hands. “I can't—no one _noticed_. How many telepaths are in the Avengers, and not _one_ of them—”

Matt hums. “None of the telepaths, no,” he allows. “But people noticed. I think Wiccan just about broke down crying when he heard about Massacre.”

Peter winces. Great. He disappointed a teenager who has the power to unmake all of reality just by wishing really hard. That’s a new low, even for him. “That’s awesome. Really. Thanks for telling me, because _that_ is what I needed to hear right now—”

Matt snorts, and beneath the mask his expression is amused. “He never believed it was you.”

“He didn’t?” Peter blinks at him, startled. He’s only met Wiccan in passing, knows he’s the son of the Scarlet Witch and half of _another_ pair of twins with super-speed and magic, but they’ve never interacted enough for Peter to expect Wiccan to notice him acting oddly. Definitely not enough for wiccan to _believe_ that it wasn’t Peter going around killing people when Cap and Tony accepted it with only a handful of questions.

That part stings. Peter can't even look them in the face right now, because they’ve both known him since he was a _teenager_ and neither of them noticed Doc Ock joyriding in his body like some sort of meat puppet—

“No,” Matt says, before Peter's thoughts can steamroll into a full-blown anxiety attack. “He and Moon Knight were investigating quietly the whole time. They were poking around in Hell’s Kitchen just a week before you…came back.”

Peter never heard about that. Neither did Otto. Frowning, Peter rubs at his temple, trying to work it out. Wiccan and _Moon Knight_? That’s a weird combo, honestly. If anything, he’d have expected Moon Knight to feel vindicated that Peter was killing, or insulted that Peter lectured him and then went on to use the same methods. Him being worried is…weird.

“Oh,” he says finally, frowning. “Moony? Really?”

“I think he was convinced the Kingpin had something to do with it,” Matt says, and smiles. It’s a dangerous expression, thin and satisfied. “Fisk’s down about half his crew. Moon Knight’s thorough. He even got the Punisher on board at one point.”

Moon Knight and Punisher working together is always a nightmare, Peter thinks, and pulls a face. But it’s…touching, maybe. Just a bit. Moony cared enough to look into things, even when other heroes completely failed to.

Maybe he found something, Peter thinks, and has to swallow down the hope that rises like a flood. Then he pauses, startled, because that’s _emotion_ , and—

Jerking to his feet, he spins around, scanning the roofs and streets around them. His heart is somewhere close, close enough that he can feel its presence, close now when it wasn’t before, and he takes three steps to the edge of the roof and turns, looking for motion. It’s midnight, but the streets still sport people passing quickly, and he wants to curse because _anyone_ could have his heart tucked away in a pocket.

“Spider-Man?” Matt asks, and he’s on his feet as well, head cocked.

“My heart,” Peter says, a little hoarse. “It’s close, I can _feel_ , but—”

Matt frowns, turning his head, and pauses. “I can't hear it,” he says finally. “If it’s nearby, it’s outside of my range.”

The sensation is fading, too, passing away, and Peter presses a hand to his empty chest and mutters a curse. The frustration is already muted, falling back to nothing, and Peter spares a moment for despair. He’s not Heartless, can still feel _something_ , but—

Not enough.

“Maybe Moon Knight found something,” Matt says quietly. “He’s a decent investigator when he wants to be. Ask him.”

Peter nods, swallows, steels himself. He hates the grey fog that curls up between him and the world, but—it’s not permanent. He just has to get his heart back.

Finding Moon Knight is never easy unless he’s making the news and putting people in the hospital. Peter spends two days hunting through Upper Manhattan and then through most of Queens, before Deadpool mentions offhand that he saw the Black Widow and Moon Knight beating up a bunch of bank robbers in Gowanus—

(“ _Hipster_ bank robbers, can you believe it? Next thing you know they’ll be demanding craft beer and refusing to rob places that aren’t trendy enough. Hey, Spidey, want to rob _my_ bank? I’ll make it worth your while, even if you don’t have a heart right now—”

Peter had webbed him in the face, but more for the really terrible overblown winks than anything else. Wade’s harmless. Mostly. Some of the time.)

—and Peter remembers, abruptly, that Moon Knight and Widow _know_ each other. They were on one of Cap’s secret teams together, and they were part of the Knights team with Daredevil and Dagger. Honestly, Natasha’s been around Moon Knight more than ninety percent of other heroes, and that means she’s a hell of a lot more likely to know how to find him.

Of course, finding _her_ isn't always easy, either.

“Natasha?” Steve asks with a frown, straightening from his stretch. Peter offers a hand, and Steve clasps it and lets Peter haul him to his feet. “She’s been around. Why do you need her?”

Peter shifts, trying not to think about Massacre, the other deaths, the way no one noticed that he was _exactly the opposite_ of his normal personality. He’ll get over it. Someday. “I just need to ask her a few questions. About Moon Knight. He burned his Avengers card, right?”

“A while ago,” Steve says wryly, ruefully. “You're right, Natasha has the best chance of locating him. I think she was with Valkyrie the other day, if that helps.”

It does, if only because Valkyrie is always easy to find. She and Thor together are a striking pair, and people tend to take pictures of them every time they're out in public. Peter just follows the trail back to a hotel in the Upper East Side, and crawls around the brickwork until a window near the top floor slides open. Natasha leans out, wearing a bathrobe and an unimpressed expression.

“Spider-Man,” she says dryly. “Looking for me?”

Peter very carefully does not look past her to where Valkyrie is sprawled on the bed, sheets pulled up to her waist and long hair wild. “Kind of?” he says, and when Natasha’s brow slides upwards he raises his hands defensively. “I'm looking for Moon Knight, but I heard about the thing in Gowanus and figured you’d know where to find him.”

Natasha pauses for a long moment, studying him thoughtfully. Crossing her arms on the sill, she leans there, and after a long moment she says, “You're looking.”

Peter blinks at her upside down, confused. “Uh. Yes? I just said that. I'm looking for—”

“No,” Natasha interrupts. “You're _looking_. Looking for your heart.”

Peter hesitates, squinting at her. “That…sounds like a capital letter kind of thing. Is this a capital letter kind of thing? Because my good tights are in the wash, and if I need to go get them—”

Natasha waves that off with an impatient hand. “People forget, now,” she says, and there’s a rueful curve to her mouth. “You’ve lost your heart, haven’t you, Spider-Man? That means you have to go looking for it.”

Peter stills, a strange sinking sensation washing over him. Oh, he thinks, a little dazed. _That_ kind of looking. Like a quest, or an old tale. Like the rule of three that says he’ll have to ask three times to get his heart back, present three gifts or offer three services. He knows how the rules work, he just…hadn’t recognized that this was that kind of looking.

“Does that mean Moony’s got my heart?” he asks quietly.

Natasha shrugs. “Or he knows who does,” she says, and smiles crookedly. “Or—”

Peter raises his hands to cut her off, because he _knows_ what that _or_ is going to be. Moon Knight’s not a princess or a fair maiden, though, so Peter's pretty sure it’s a moot point.

“So you're one of the Guides,” he says instead. “What are your terms?”

“You're doing things out of order,” Natasha says, a mild complaint, but cocks her head, red hair falling over her shoulders. “Get me a rose,” she says, and smirks. It’s mildly terrifying. Usually that look means she’s about to kill someone with a stiletto. “One red rose with the thorns broken off, and I’ll tell you where to find Moon Knight.”

Peter nods, relieved that it’s not something worse, and drops down to find a flower-seller. He wonders if Steve counts as the first Guide, or if he’s going to have to go through two more after Natasha. He’d helped Steve to his feet, after all, and the rules can be funny about that sort of thing. Sometimes it counts and sometimes it doesn’t, but Peter's hoping it does. All he wants is his heart back.

(Natasha turns the rose around and around in her fingers, studying the way the crimson petals end in curls of black, deep and velvety.

Her heart is a wire, thin and deadly, meant for cutting throats and tumbling to safety, but sometimes she thinks that she wishes it were a rose instead.

“It is too easy,” Brunnhilde says quietly, “to give a rose away.”

Natasha doesn’t ask if Brunnhilde knows what she’s thinking; she probably does. “Do the Asgardians have hearts like humans do?”

Brunnhilde leans against the wall beside her, long golden hair falling around her shoulders and over her breasts. “No,” she murmurs, and curls her fingers over Natasha’s on the rose. “We keep our hearts close, and never give them away, except metaphorically.”

“Maybe you're smarter for that,” Natasha says, and drags her thumb over the stem. It’s rough; Spider-Man broke the thorns off himself, quick and desperate to find his next clue.

Brunnhilde catches her other hand, tangles their fingers together. “I had never thought of hearts as beautiful until I saw those mortals carry,” she says, and Natasha meets her blue, blue eyes and sees the truth there. “You make yourselves so vulnerable. It is a brave thing.”

Natasha leans in and kisses her, and even if her heart will never be a rose, this is enough.)

“A restaurant,” Peter mutters. “Really? Moon Knight hangs around _here_?” He squints at the neat building, then at the street number, and frowns. This is the place that Natasha said to check, but…he doesn’t get why Moon Knight would be at a fancy French restaurant unless he was feeling peckish and in the mood for something upscale. Which would not be the weirdest thing, but it’s still _weird_.

A little confused, Peter crawls around the edge of the building, over to the alley that crosses behind it. There’s a dumpster and a can full of cigarette butts, a crate full of empty bottles, but not even a stray crescent dart to mark Moon Knight’s presence.

Hanging upside down above the back door, Peter scowls and folds his arms over his chest. Natasha isn't supposed to _lie_ to him—that’s not how Guides work. He gave her the rose, so she’s supposed to give him the truth. It’s a _rule_.

And then, with a burst of noise and voices and laughter from the kitchen, the door opens. A man limps out, tall and thin and leaning on a cane, carrying a bag full of cans. He tosses them into the recycling bin, then turns, spots Peter, and stops dead.

“Uh,” Peter says, and tries for a wave. “Hi? Just, er, inspecting your recycling facilities. Looks like everything’s in tip-top shape!”

But the man’s narrowed eyes do one slow sweep, assessing, and then he sighs. “You are here about Moon Knight,” he says, heavily accented English and a thread of resignation that makes Peter's chest prickle. “The office window is unlocked, if you would care to meet me there, Spider-Man.”

“Uh. Sure?” Peter squints at him, more than a little confused. “Wait, you know Moon Knight?”

The man snorts, bitter and tired. “Very well. In my office, Spider-Man, this is not a conversation for the street.”

Fair enough, Peter decides, and crawls up to the second story window. It comes up easily when he tugs, and he drops through into a neat, cramped office, where—

“Oh,” a redheaded man behind the desk says, blinking at him in surprise. “You're Spider-Man.”

“Guilty,” Peter says, wiggling his fingers in a wave. “Only not of anything the Bugle’s accused me of. Those are lies. JJ’s out for my head. But of being Spider-Man? Yes, I'm guilty.”

The man smiles, looking bemused, and shakes his head, rising to his feet. “Jean-Paul must be on his way up,” he says. “I’ll give you some privacy.”

“Thanks,” Peter says awkwardly, but thankfully the door opens before he has to come up with anything else. Jean-Paul enters, and the redheaded man reaches out to touch his elbow.

“Want me to cover the floor?” he asks.

“Thank you, Rob,” Jean-Paul says gratefully. “I will be down in a moment.”

Rob grins at him, bright and warm. “You know I love the uniform here,” he says, cheeky, and then ducks out of the office as Jean-Paul makes a sound of amused offense. The door closes behind him, and Jean-Paul snorts, carefully picking his way over to the desk.

“I apologize for my husband,” he says. “He is a fan of superheroes.”

“But you're not?” Peter guesses warily, and perches on the edge of the windowsill, ready to flip out backwards if his spider-sense goes off.

Jean-Paul’s expression twists. “I was too close to Moon Knight to care for superheroes,” he says, and looks up, meeting Peter's eyes. “I have seen what being one turned him into.”

Peter thinks of Mary-Jane and has to swallow. That’s unpleasantly familiar. “You _know_ -know him, then.”

Jean-Paul smiles tiredly. “For many years, Spider-Man. We were mercenaries together once, and Moon Knight was the only good man in the whole group.”

Oh. They _really_ know each other, then. Peter hesitates, and then says, “I lost my heart, and I think Moon Knight has it. I need to find him.”

For a long, long moment, Jean-Paul doesn’t answer. His breath escapes him on a soft snort, finally, and he folds his hands on his desk. “I do not associate with Moon Knight any longer, Spider-Man,” he says. “If he has your heart, I pity you. He is not a gentle man, or a kind one.”

Peter wants to wince. A lot of history, and he’s willing to bet it didn’t end well, if that’s how Jean-Paul talks about Moon Knight. “Look,” he says, “I don’t know anything about what happened between you, I just need to find him. Black Widow said he spends a lot of time around here, so—”

But Jean-Paul stills at those words, pales. His expression twists, and he covers his face with a hand. Peter snaps his mouth shut, watching the grief wash over him, and doesn’t know what to say.

“That _fool_ ,” Jean-Paul finally manages. “He is a fool and it will get all of us killed.”

“Uh,” Peter says awkwardly. “I mean, Black Widow isn't known for babbling, but—I did her a favor—”

“You filled a request,” Jean-Paul says without looking up. “Not everyone forgets the true meaning of a lost heart, Spider-Man.”

“You don’t have any idea where Moon Knight is?” Peter asks, maybe a little desperate. “Even a hint?”

Jean-Paul snorts. “I know everything. As I said, he is a fool. Too trusting.” He raises his head, and his expression is tired, grim. “Spider-Man, you look for your heart, but you should know that in all the time I have known Moon Knight, he has never had one.”

Peter pauses, confused. “You mean he’s Heartless? But I've worked with him, and he wasn’t…”

“He is not without heart,” Jean-Paul acknowledges quietly. “But he does not possess a heart, either.”

That makes no sense at all, and Peter frowns, trying to untangle the implications. “I have no idea what you're talking about,” he admits.

Jean-Paul smiles sadly. “I have known him for many years,” he says again. “And in all of that time, he has never had a heart to give away. Not for love, or camaraderie, or grief. If Moon Knight has a heart, Spider-Man, it is not his own.”

Uncle Ben had liked to tell stories, when Peter was little and couldn’t fall asleep. Stories about princes and princesses who had their hearts stolen, or who gave them away in the midst of grief and then had to spend years trying to win them back. Sometimes they couldn’t manage it, and they had to be rescued by True Love and someone winning their hearts’ freedom from the darkness. Old stories, twisted, sad, hopeful stories that ended with a kiss, and Peter had loved them for years. Had loved them right up until he grew up and realized that there weren’t knights or princes or princesses waiting to be rescued.

There were just broken hearts and gunshots on the sidewalk and a policeman at the door, breaking the world apart.

People don’t give their hearts away. They share them, sometimes, but handing a heart off without asking for a price paid in return isn't something that happens in the real world.

Hearts shared are hard enough to reclaim without breaking. Peter can't even image what it’s like to press a heart into someone’s hands and just _give_.

He remembers Moon Knight on the rooftop, face bare and tired, seeing hallucinations of a dead girl who wanted to be a firefighter, and wonders if Moon Knight knows. Wonders, too, if he regrets it, and how he’ll ever be able to get his heart back if no one even knows they should ask for it.

(“What do you want in return?” Peter asks, hovering at the edge of Jean-Paul’s office. “You're a Guide, and I need to give you something—”

But Jean-Paul had just looked at him for a long, long moment, and then said, “Do not let him die, Spider-Man.”

Peter had paused at that, not sure what to say, and Jean-Paul had smiled, thin and bare and tired, and so, so sad.

“Moon Knight is not the only fool,” he said, and looked away.)

“You sure this is where you want to stop, Spidey?” the cab driver asks skeptically.

Peter is honestly feeling just as dubious. The mansion is overgrown, in disrepair. There’s no sign of life, no trace of heart to it. Usually homes take on a warm edge, the hearts inside them curling against the walls, but this place is just…cold.

 _That man has no one in the world who would call him friend_ , Jean-Paul had said when he gave Peter the address.

 _Not even you_? Peter had asked.

 _No. Not anymore_ , Jean-Paul had told him, tired, final, and shut the window in his face.

“Yeah,” Peter says, and vaults off the roof of the cab, digging into his pockets to come up with some cash. He doesn’t keep much with him when he’s in costume, but this probably counts as an emergency. Besides, he’s rich now, no matter how the thought makes his skin crawl. He can afford a cab. “Keep the change.”

The driver grins. “Hey, Spidey, you’re an all right guy. The Bugle’s been telling a lot of lies.”

“If only JJ was so easily convinced,” Peter laments, and waves as the man pulls away. Peter doesn’t watch him go, but turns his gaze to the mansion at the end of the curving drive and takes a breath.

His heart is close by. He can feel it.

Leaping up onto the top of the wall, Peter hesitates, waiting for his spider-sense to alert him to any dangers. There don’t seem to be any, though, and when he swings from a tall oak up onto the mansion’s roof, everything seems quiet. Deserted, almost, but Peter can feel the pulse of his heart beneath his feet, and knows there’s someone close.

There don’t seem to be locks on anything, and he easily finds a balcony door left open and slips in. The halls are decorated with an eclectic mash of ancient Egyptian artifacts and modern paintings, all grey with dust. The whole house echoes emptily with every step, and Peter carefully minds the shifting floorboards, following the sense of his heart down the staircase in the main hall. Turns down a long hall, past the kitchen and a small gym, and rounds a corner just as light fractures on white stone.

His spider-sense screams a warning, and Peter hurls himself up and over and lands on the ceiling, just as a pale form shimmers into being where he stood.

“ _Oh_ ,” Peter says. Squeaks. “You're—um.”

The glowing form of a man, veiled and wearing a headdress, looks up at him, and Peter gets the distinct sense he’s smiling. The buzzing _alarm_ of his spider-sense doesn’t abate; if anything, it kicks up a notch.

“Spider-Man,” Moon Knight’s god says, watching him. There’s no doubt that he _is_ a god—he sounds just like Clint's descriptions of him, and even beyond that, there’s a strange, burning _weight_ to him, like he’s in Peter's head more than he’s part of reality. “I know what you’ve come here seeking.”

“Do you?” Peter says. “Magic 8 ball’s working overtime, huh?” Cautiously, he tips forward, drops from the ceiling to land in a crouch a few yards from the god, and asks warily, “You're Khonshu, right?”

Khonshu inclines his head. “You seek my knight,” he says, dark amusement and unsettling intent. “You seek what he guards.”

Peter takes a breath. “No,” he says, and Khonshu pauses. “Well, I mean, _yes_ , I’d really like my heart back because there’s no way I can get my weekly dose of crying over romcoms like this, but—” He snaps his mouth shut, takes a breath. Says, more evenly, without the manic edge, “I request Moon Knight’s heart.”

Khonshu's eyes narrow above his veil, and the armor he’s wearing glitters like hammered steel. “You would seek his heart before your own, Spider?”

Not a denial. That means something. Buoyed, Peter grins behind his mask, and offers, “What can I say, I'm bad at priorities. Would you give me Moon Knight’s heart?”

“There is no reason why I should give something that has spent near thirty years in my keeping over to the first soul to ask for it,” Khonshu counters, but he hasn’t moved, still hasn’t said no. Maybe it’s the proximity to his own heart, but hope bubbles up, intent and eager, and Peter doesn’t waver.

“No one else has asked,” he says. “No one else has figured out that they need to. But you're holding his heart, and that means he’s halfway to losing it, all the time. Please, give it to me.”

Three requests, and Khonshu is the third Guide, the third obstacle. Moon Knight is somewhere beyond him, close enough that Peter can feel the pace of his heart picking up, echoing through the silent house.

“Three requests,” he tells Khonshu, though there’s no way the god doesn’t know. “Say no or tell me the price.”

Khonshu watches him for a long, long moment. “The price?” he says, amusement like broken glass in his whole being. “Little Spider, the price of Moon Knight’s heart is having to carry Moon Knight’s heart. Is this a burden you would surrender yourself to?”

Peter swallows, caught off guard. “I just want to give it back to him,” he says honestly. “He’s—everyone thinks he’s Heartless. I don’t want them to anymore.”

Khonshu's eyes glow, moon-bright and steady. “Three times asked, and three times explained,” he says softly, and raises a hand. Light pools in his palm, slowly taking form, and Peter watches as a silver crescent dart shapes itself out of nothing. It’s more delicate than Moon Knight’s calling cards, more ornate. The engravings are inlaid with sapphire glass, shining in the low light, and when Peter reaches out for it, he can feel Moon Knight’s heart caught up in the sweeping lines.

It settles into his palm, too heavy for such a small thing, worn but bright, and Peter cups it in his palms and holds it close. It cuts him, sharp and deadly, slices right through his gloves and into his skin, but Peter doesn’t let go.

“Very well,” Khonshu says, and Peter glances up, holds his unnervingly bright gaze. “I will allow you passage, Spider-Man. Go swiftly.”

With a ripple of moonlight, he vanishes, and Peter slips down the hallway to a door that stands open. A flight of stairs leads down, towards his heart, and he takes them quickly, stepping out into a wide bay. Moon Knight’s copter sits at one end, a white motorcycle beside it, and there are tools lying around the latter like it was just being worked on. Along one of the far walls is a worn old couch, and there’s a body slumped over it.

Moon Knight is asleep. Unmasked, still, breathing quietly, and Peter's breath tangles up somewhere in his throat at the sight of him. In sleep, he looks too quiet, too human, with lines around his eyes and a curve like the start of a frown to his mouth. When Peter approaches and crouches down in front of him, he doesn’t stir.

Carefully, Peter lifts one bloody hand, raises a finger, and touches the scar that slants down across Moon Knight’s eye. It’s deep, old, and only just missed taking out his eye, one bout of good luck against plenty of bad.

“Hey, Moony,” Peter says. “I think you’ve got something of mine.”

There's a pause, a long, slow breath. Moon Knight’s eyes slide open, and he stares at Peter for an endless minute. “Spider-Man,” he rasps, and rolls over onto his back, rubbing his hands over his face. Sits up, dragging a hand through his hair, and—

Freezes. Perfectly, desperately still, with his gaze fixed on the crescent in Peter's grip.

Peter offers it up in the cup of both bleeding hands. “Trade you,” he jokes. “My heart for yours.”

Disbelieving eyes flicker up, hold Peter's. “What?” Moon Knight asks, ragged.

“You miss it, don’t you?” Peter asks. “On the rooftop, and—you realized I wasn’t me, when no one else did. I just—I wanted to do something for you in return.”

Carefully, almost warily, Moon Knight reaches out, presses his fingertips to the dart. “I haven’t—it’s been years since I saw it,” he says quietly. Glances up again, then pauses, and says, “I have your heart?”

Peter nods. “I lost it. Doc Ock took over my body, and he got rid of it, but I didn’t see where. It was—a ring. A woman’s ring.”

For one terrible, awful moment, there's no response, and Peter thinks with a sinking sort of horror that Moon Knight is about to say he has no idea what Peter means, that he had something like that but tossed it out—

And then, deliberately, Moon Knight reaches up, under the neck of his armor, and pulls out a gold chain. Peter's heart is hanging from it, polished and carefully maintained, and Peter just about wants to cry. He reaches out, and Moon Knight undoes the clasp, drops it into Peter's hand without hesitation.

“I didn’t want someone to take it,” he explains. “I didn’t know whose it was.”

But he kept it anyway, protected it, cared for it.

“Thank you,” Peter says. “I—thanks, Moony. I owe you one.”

“It’s Marc,” Moon Knight says quietly, and smiles. Just a little, but Peter can see it touch his eyes, warm his face. Reaching out, he folds the fingers of Peter's free hand over his heart, so carefully that the edges don’t even cut, and says, “Keep mine. That’s the price. Find somewhere safe and keep it hidden.”

“But…” Peter swallows, looking at him for a long moment, then down at his heart. “You wanted it back, right?”

“I wanted a human to have it, instead of a god,” Marc says. “You’ll take care of it.”

Peter hesitates, but—

Marc kept his heart safe. No one knows he’s Peter, but Marc had his heart for _months_ and never wavered.

Reaching up, he pulls off his own mask, grins at the surprise that flickers over Marc's face. “I'm going to kiss you,” he says, just to make things plain. “That’s totally what’s supposed to happen next.”

“It is?” Marc raises a scarred brow at him, but he’s smiling, and he’s also not moving away.

“Of course,” Peter says, all breezy confidence that he doesn’t feel an ounce of. His heart is pounding in his hand, and he can _feel it_. “There are _rules_ about these kinds of things, Moony. This is definitely one of them.”

Marc laughs, surprised, bright. It makes kissing him a little awkward, but honestly? Peter wouldn’t change it for the world.


End file.
